Riders to the Stars

As a long time classic sci fi fanatic, I must admit I'd never even heard of this film before. This comes as no surprise as it seems to have had essentially no significant release to VHS or DVD yet. For the fan of classic black and white '50s sci fi, this is essential viewing. Though the model effects are primitive and the "science" is rather dubious, the cast is first rate. Reasonably effective use of stock footage of U.S. military V-2 rocket tests helps overcome some of the budgetary limitations.

Second in Ivan Tors Productions' "Office of Scientific Investigation" (O.S.I.) trilogy, "Riders to the Stars" belongs to that sf sub-genre of straightforward space exploration epic -- no ray guns and bug-eyed monsters allowed. Which is no doubt why I found it so boring, when I caught it on the afternoon Big Show back in the 1960s.

Thanks to TCM, I've had a chance to see it again, and while it's undeniably leisurely-paced in parts and suffers from a tragically inadequate effects budget, it's still a far better film than I remembered. However, much of my appreciation comes from the fact that it tickles my nostalgia nerve and has some nifty stock footage from the early days of America's space program, which at the time mostly consisted of shooting off captured V-2s out at White Sands. So viewers who don't have the fond memories of and/or historical interest in this era of the Space Age will probably find this pretty dull stuff.

The writer -- Curt Siodmak -- deserves high marks for doing his research on the subject, thereby making the section of the film depicting the painstaking selection process and rigorous training of our trio of astronauts remarkably prescient at times. The science behind their dangerous mission isn't so well-thought-out, but it provides for some minor thrills as the astronauts attempt to chase down and retrieve a meteor from low Earth orbit.

Worth watching, especially if you consider it as a companion film and precursor to "Gog", the third and final entry in the O.S.I. series.

With sincerity and good intentions there was a smattering of Non-Alien-Flying Saucer-Soul Snatching Movies in the Fifties. This one is "Scientific" to a fault but somewhat succeeds at being an Adult friendly story, that Kids flocked to, about the yet to be, but soon to be, Adventure of Manned Space Travel.

It was all so new but we were approaching the time that all Sci-Fi Nerds just knew would happen and after we split the Atom, everything now seemed not only possible but probable. Hence we have this Movie and a very few others that tried its low-budget best to put up on the screen as Entertainment, this highly anticipated new era in Human endeavors and exploration.

The problem is that all this Science stuff is pretty boring when viewed as entertainment. Documentaries are informative and interesting but most are hardly effectively entertaining. They are what they are and this is what it is. A Movie marketed as entertainment that in the end is only slightly so. It is more interesting than entertaining and was more informative in 1954 than it was exciting.

It does manage, against all odds, to be engaging enough in a time-capsule kind of way and most likely created a buzz among Movie goers. It also, may have attracted the readers of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines. But the irony is that there are probably more accurate prognostications in this Movie than in those highly sophisticated, pretentious periodicals. They were almost always wrong.

The movie was one of my favorites when I was gowing up. I was lucky enough to read the paperback book when it came out, & I was very excited when I heard there would be a movie. It is a classic in its way, showing the selection process for what is virtually an impossible task( Space travel depends on onbtaining a material found only in meteorites, so we must travel in space to get it so we can then travel in space...) There is the usual love-interest, but the most interesting character in the book/movie is played by Richard Carlson, as a logical detached scientist, who is lost in a kind of "Rapture of the Deep" in reaction to the reality of, and the sheer beauty of the stars. If you can find this movie --get it!!

This low budget science fiction film from the Middle Fifties is illustrative of just how far we've come in space travel. Now folks like United States Senators like Jake Garn and pop stars like Lance Bass vie for the privilege of space travel. It's proved to be quite a money maker for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

But back in 1954 there was no NASA. The Army, Navy, and Air Force all had rival space programs if you can believe that. It took Sputnik for the Eisenhower administration and Congress to create NASA in 1958.

A group of competent B players bring us Riders to the Stars and the object here is just a quick trip up in space to capture a meteor before it burns up in our atmosphere. One thing is certain, they somehow survive the Van Allen radiation belt that surrounds the Earth, a recent discovery that Riders to the Stars was capitalizing on.

Herbert Marshall heads the scientific team who are looking for a few good men and among those gathered are William Lundigan and Richard Carlson. Martha Hyer is around to be decorative as Marshall's girl Friday and to provide a little romance.

The best part of Riders to the Stars was the intensive physical training that is shown for these astronauts to be. Not unlike what was done in NASA for the original Mercury astronauts. You had to be one peak physical specimen to qualify back in the day. Not that you can have health issues now, but a 60 something US Senator Jake Garn has gone in space and pop star Lance Bass aspires to.

Riders to the Stars is educational, but a bit on the dull side. It really peaks in the last 25 minutes or so with the actual flight. Still it's an earnest film and worth a look.